EAC Student Association Launched in China

EAC Student Association Launched in China

Students from the East African Community studying in China have officially launched the East African Student Association (EASA).

The ceremony, which took place at the Tanzanian Embassy in Beijing, was attended by ambassadors from East African countries.

Victor Nshunguyimfura, the president of the Rwanda Diaspora Global Network (RDGN) in China, told The Rwanda Focus that the objective of forming the association is to enable students from the EAC studying in China to know each other and share information and expertise which will help them to be ambassadors of the Community in China promoting the potential of their countries.

"This association will also facilitate us as students from the EAC to share our culture with the Chinese community and I believe this will have positive impact on our economies back home by increasing the number of tourists and investors who come from China" Nshunguyimfura said.

He noted that the association will act as a platform where the members will be discussing how they can contribute to socio-economic transformation in the future, adding that it will help students from EAC partner states in addressing their day-to-day challenges such as the difficulty in obtaining internships in China.

The students who were attended the function urged their embassies to always give them advice and support towards making their association more vibrant and productive.

Ibrahim Ganaafa, the head of EASA, noted that although the function took place in Beijing, they will go to other cities in China to meet students from the EAC and inform them about the association.
"We do this in the comfort of our desks and there's transparency where the client/owner of the goods can follow the progress on line making business easy for all involved," Sseka said.

Nonetheless, the region still has sticking bottlenecks which are rendering hardships to easier and faster trade.

For instance, Mark Priestly, the country director of Trade Mark East Africa in Rwanda says that cargo trucks move at a snail speed of three to four kilo meters per hour from Tanzania/Mombasa to Kigali due to bad roads and other non-tariff barriers on the road. This can't compare with the speed average of a cargo truck in Europe, for example, of 60km per hour.

"Fast movement and clearance of goods affects the whole chain of production which calls for efficiency at customs," Lamy observed.

Kagarama recalled from his experience a decade ago where he said that slow customs clearance is not only a waste of time and money for traders but also the customs' authorities who don't necessarily make more money from these delays.

What the EWS system did was to transfer the MAGERWA & Customs systems as well as the arrival notice form online which automatically ceased the need to visit all the offices involved like was the case in past.

But Lamy says if such a move is to pay off well, partner states need to adopt the same approach.
"There should be a single window between development and traders as the best way to achieve results," he said.

Before the ESW, it would take three days, eighteen hours and forty minutes to clear cargo but now with the system up and running, the maximum is 30 hours, 08 minutes. The total reduction has resulted into a saving of about $17 million worth of trade time and costs.